Weekjournaal Nieuwe Oorlog week 52, 2001

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ANDER NIEUWS OVER DE 'NIEUWE OORLOG' - WEEKJOURNAAL
WEEK 52 - 26 DECEMBER 2001
(Engels-Nederlandse berichten - deel 1)
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1. AMERICA'S DIRTY AFGHAN SECRET: IT'S A WAR OVER OIL
2. COLLATERAL DAMAGE MADE REAL
3. FEEDING THE HUNGRY MAY BE THE PRIME TASK OF PEACEKEEPERS
4. US MILITARY WANT SAS TO ATTACK BASES IN YEMEN
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1. AMERICA'S DIRTY AFGHAN SECRET: IT'S A WAR OVER OIL
By V K Shashikumar, New Delhi, November 21, 2001
Intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie have released
an explosive book that claims the US' primary interest in the Afghan War
might be oil, not terrorism; the US president, they claim, had obstructed
investigation into the Taliban's terrorist activities.
A book written by two French intelligence analysts is certain to embarrass
President George W Bush and his administration. The book, Bin Laden, La
Verite Interdite (Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth), released recently,
claims that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Deputy Director John
O'Neill resigned in July in protest over Bush's obstruction of an
investigation into Taliban's terrorist activities. The authors,
Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, claim that Bush resorted to
this obstruction under the influence of the United States' oil companies.
Bush stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism, even as
it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in
exchange for political recognition and economic aid. "The main obstacles to
investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role
played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors.
According to the Brisard and Dasquie, the main objective of the US
government in Afghanistan prior to Black Tuesday was aimed at consolidating
the Taliban regime, in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves
in Central Asia.
Prior to September 11, the US government had an extremely benevolent
understanding of the Taliban regime. The Taliban was perceived "as a source
of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil
pipeline across Central Asia" from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian
Ocean. This would have secured for the US another huge captive and
alternate oil resource centre. "The oil and gas reserves of Central Asia
have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all
that...this rationale of energy security changed into a military one," the
authors claim.
"At one moment during the negotiations, US representatives told the
Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you
under a carpet of bombs'," Brisard said in an interview in Paris. On
Saturday, representatives of the Northern Alliance (NA), former King Zahir
Shah's confidantes, and possibly, non-Taliban Pashtun leaders, will meet in
Berlin under the aegis of the US-led coalition to discuss a broad-based
government in Afghanistan. It might be a coincidence that the US and
Taliban diplomatic representatives met in Berlin early this year.
According to the book, the Bush administration began a series of
negotiations with the Taliban early in 2001. Washington and Islamabad were
also venues for some of the meetings. The authors claim that before the
September 11 attacks, Christina Rocca, in charge of Asian Affairs in the US
State Department, met Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef in
Islamabad on August 2, 2001. Interestingly, Rocca is a veteran of US
involvement in Afghanistan. She was previously in charge of contacts with
Islamist guerrilla groups at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where
she oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighting
the Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s.
Brisard and Dasquie also reveal that the Taliban were not really
ultra-orthodox in their diplomatic approach, because they actually hired an
American public relations' expert for an image-making campaign in the US.
It is, of course, not known whether the Pakistanis helped the Taliban
secure the services of a professional image-maker. What is, however,
revealed in the book is that Laila Helms, a public relations professional,
who also doubles up as an authority on the way the US intelligence agencies
work, was employed by the Taliban. Her task was to get the US recognise the
Taliban regime. Prior to September 11, only three countries - Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and UAE - recognised the Taliban regime. Helms' familiarity
with the ways of US intelligence organisations comes through her
association with Richard Helms, who is her uncle a former director of the
CIA and former US ambassador to Tehran.
Helms is described as the Mata Hari of US-Taliban negotiations. The authors
claim that she brought Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, an advisor to Mullah
Omar, to Washington for five days in March 2001 - after the Taliban had
destroyed the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Hashimi met the Directorate of
Central Intelligence at the CIA, and the Bureau of Intelligence and
Research at the State Department.
The Frenchmen have indeed produced a controversial book, which is
undoubtedly explosive, because of the interesting nuggets of information
they have dug up. Besides, they have an impressive record in intelligence
analysis, and this perhaps is the reason why the book is being talked about
in hushed tones in Paris and other European capitals. Till the late 1990s,
Brisard was the director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, a
French company. He also worked for French secret services (DST), and wrote
for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al Qaeda network, headed by bin
Laden. Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence
Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and
strategy.
On November 19, The Irish Times said in a report, "O'Neill investigated the
bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in
1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS
Cole last year."
"Jean-Charles Brisard, who wrote a report on bin Laden's finances for the
French intelligence agency DST, and is co-author of Hidden Truth, met
O'Neill several times last summer. He complained bitterly that the US State
Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's
entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt."
"The US ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, forbade O'Neill and his team
of so- called Rambos (as the Yemeni authorities called them) from entering
Yemen. In August 2001, O'Neill resigned in frustration, and took up a new
job as head of security at the World Trade Center. He died in the September
11 attack."
O'Neill, an Irish-American, reportedly told Brisard that all the answers,
and everything needed to dismantle bin Laden's Al Qaeda, can be found in
Saudi Arabia. Fearing that the Saudi royal family would be offended, US
diplomats quietly buried the leads developed by O'Neill. So much so that
even when the FBI wanted to talk to the suspects accused of bombing a US
military installation in Dhahran in June 1996, in which 19 US servicemen
were killed, the US State Department refused to make much noise about it.
The Saudi officials, however, interrogated the suspects, declared them
guilty and executed them. O'Neill actually went to Saudi with his team, but
according to the report in The Irish Times quoting Brisard, "they were
reduced to the role of forensic scientists, collecting material evidence on
the bomb site".
The US' hedging on investigating Taliban's terrorist activities and its
links with bin Laden were premised on the belief that a quid pro quo deal
could be arranged with Taliban. The deal, apparently, was oil for
diplomatic and international recognition. One important reason for
Operation Enduring Freedom could well be securing American oil interests in
the region. It would not be surprising if the pipeline project is put back
on track soon. Even a cursory look at the oil potential of the Central
Asian region is enough to understand the American interest in this region.
The Caspian Sea basin encompassing countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are believed to possess some 200 billion
barrels of oil, which is about one-third the amount found in the Persian
Gulf area.
The greater Gulf area, encompassing Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia,
the UAE and other adjacent countries, has been a centre of international
oil politics. First, the British fought to gain control over the area's
petroleum wealth, followed by the French. But in the post-World War II
scenario, the US emerged as the dominant power in the region, because its
energy security and economic prosperity depended on the uninterrupted oil
supply from this region. In March 1945, President Franklin D Roosevelt and
King Addel Aziz ibn Saud signed a secret agreement, which forged a
long-lasting strategic partnership. Though the details of the agreement
remains secret till date, the deal ensured privileged US access to Saudi
oil, in return for US protection of the royal family from internal and
external threats.
However, the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil is not a secret. The US
national energy policy, released by the Bush administration earlier this
year, stated, "The Gulf will be a primary focus of US international energy
policy." According to Michael T Klare, professor of peace and world
security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, and author of Resource
Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, by launching Operation Enduring
Freedom, the US want to achieve two sets of objectives: "First, to capture
and punish those responsible for the September 11 attacks, and to prevent
further acts of terrorism; and two, to consolidate US power in the Persian
Gulf and Caspian Sea area, and to ensure continued flow of oil. And while
the second set may get far less public attention than the first, this does
not mean that is any less important."
With many senior members of the Bush administration linked to major oil
business interests, it more than a matter of coincidence that the US is
involved in a war in Afghanistan. Vice-President Dick Cheney was, until the
end of last year, president of Halliburton, a company that provides
services for the oil industry. US National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice was, between 1991 and 2000, manager for Chevron; secretaries of
commerce and energy, Donald Evans and Stanley Abraham, worked for Tom
Brown, another oil giant.
There is, therefore, more to the War against terrorism than the Bush
administration is willing to admit. So, Operation Enduring Freedom wants to
do the following:
- Destroy Taliban and Al Qaeda;
- Counter and destroy the threat to Central Asian countries from Islamic
extremists supported by bin Laden and Taliban. The Americans have conducted
joint military exercises with forces of some Central Asian countries, and
prior to start of the military operations in Afghanistan, signed agreements
of cooperation with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzhstan;
- Negate the Taliban and Al Qaeda objective of replacing the existing
Central Asian governments with militant Islamic regimes.
By achieving all these objectives, Operation Enduring Freedom will also
secure the US' oil interests in the Caspian Sea area.
Source:
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2. COLLATERAL DAMAGE MADE REAL
Deborah James, AlterNet
December 13, 2001
I was wholly unprepared for the level of poverty and desperation I
witnessed among refugees on a recent trip to Afghanistan. If you have never
imagined the refugee camps, visualize a seemingly endless stretch of
scrap-and-stick tents, filled with raucous children, lacking food, water,
basic hygiene or infrastructure. Border it with stunning stark mountains,
surround it with cold air and support it with dirt and dust. Then you will
have an idea of the conditions under which Afghan refugees fleeing American
bombs are attempting to survive.
After the tragedies of Sept. 11, when it became clear that the U.S. would
retaliate against Osama bin Laden's terrorist attacks though a campaign
against Afghanistan, I began to worry. I had heard about "collateral
damage" and "smart bombs" during the Gulf War. My gut tightened when I
heard these rhetorical strategies deployed now. My father, a career U.S.
Army officer, was deployed to the Gulf with those very phrases in 1990.
This time it was my turn to travel to the region, to see for myself the
effects of U.S. military action.
In late November I traveled to Jalalabad, Kabul, Peshawar and Islamabad on
a four-woman delegation organized by Global Exchange, the human rights
organization where I have worked for the last eight years. I also
represented the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the
oldest women's peace organization in the U.S. and, as a result, I focused
particularly on the issue of women in a post-Taliban government and the
condition of children in the refugee camps. But my main personal aim was
just to witness, and what I witnessed was extremely troubling.
There was Ramsir, A 24-year-old Tajik mother whose 5-year-old child is
psychologically damaged from the recent bombing. Rasmir's daughter was at a
park in Kabul when American bombs, aimed at the airport, missed their mark
and killed three of her playmates. The women in the park screamed, "Where's
my child?!" Rasmir told me, as they searched for remains among the
shrapnel. After this, Rasmir and her children, who remained in Kabul
through both the mujahedeen and the Taliban regimes, fled the country.
Before the slaughter in the park, Rasmir's neighbor's house had been hit by
U.S. bombs. All nine members of the family were killed. Rasmir told me the
shock her daughter experienced in the park was too much.
I met Rasmir at the Afghanistan Women's Council, a food distribution,
health and educational services project for refugee women and children in
Peshawar, Pakistan. Directed by Fatana Gailani, the center has recently
been inundated by refugees fleeing not only the Taliban but the American
bombing. I asked Gailani if she supported the U.S. bombing campaign, as I
expected an educated woman from Kabul would. "Like most people, I was happy
at first, as I am eager to return to a liberated Afghanistan," she said.
"But then I started seeing the flow of refugees, almost every one with a
story of civilian casualties. And now I say that the bombing must stop. We
innocent Afghans are paying the price." Another vivid memory is of Haziza,
a 12-year-old girl living in a refugee relief center in Peshawar. I sat
with Haziza while an elderly woman told us she had lost her three sons --
one to the Russians, one to the mujahedeen and one to the Taliban. As
Haziza started sniffling, another visitor to the center asked the girl
crudely, "Why are you crying?" to which she responded with deeper sobs. As
I reached to embrace Haziza, I could feel her body brace against the
deepest pain. "We lived in Kabul near one of the Taliban military bases,
where my father had a small grocery store," she said. "One day I was out
with my father, when we saw planes roaring overhead and heard scary, loud
sounds like thunder. When we returned home, my mother and younger brother
were lying dead in a pile of rubble that was once our house. My father went
into shock and lost his mind. Now I'm the one in charge of our household. I
take care of my five brothers and sisters. We have no money and it's hard
for me to find them enough food to eat."
I also met refugees in a camp on the road from the Khyber Pass to
Jalalabad. They were from the nearby village of Duranta, which was nearly
hit by American bombs that were targeting a Taliban camp and missed. After
the bombing, inhabitants of the entire village fled. Eight days later, they
began returning home in a trickle. But they have been terrorized by the
bombing. I took a picture of 17 children standing in front of the village;
the backdrop to the photo is bomb craters.
How many civilian deaths have occurred since the bombing campaign of
Afghanistan began? I asked several Afghans if they could estimate the
number. The estimates I heard ranged from 1,000 to 5,000. When I relayed
that figure to a U.S. reporter upon my return, she paused and countered
that it actually wasn't that many, considering we are at war. I replied
that it was approximately the same number of innocent people who died in
the World Trade Center attack. Have we become the evil we deplore?
The answer to the question will emerge as Afghanistan rebuilds itself, as
more exact numbers of civilian casualties emerge, as our promises of aid
are either met or retracted. But whatever the postwar Afghanistan looks
like, the battle will be uphill. Afghanistan has long been a country in
crisis. It has been devastated by over two decades of war. Ten percent of
all land mines in the world are there. Life expectancy is 45 years of age,
and Afghanistan's infant mortality rate rivals the poorest African nations.
The national literacy rate is 10 percent and diminishes by half for women.
Tribal warlordism and monarchy are the two political arrangements familiar
to the Afghan people. Those traditions are resistant to change, and their
remnants are the primary components of the new coalition government that
resulted from talks in Bonn in November.
One step toward stability in Afghanistan is the incorporation of women in
government, or their re-incorporation. Women were part of the loya jirga,
traditional parliament, in Afghanistan before the wars, and I met several
accomplished women who could be pivotal to rebuilding the country. In the
end, two women were chosen to be part of the transitional government: Sima
Samar, vice minister for women's affairs, and Suhaila Seddiqi, who will be
appointed minister of health. "I'm elated," said Khorshid Noori,
coordinator of the Afghan Women's Network in reference to Samar and
Seddiqi's inclusion in the government. After five years of Taliban rule and
the Northern Alliance before them, it's a start, though the general
sentiment is it's far from enough.
The question put to me most often by Afghans relates to U.S. interests in
the region. After the Russians were defeated in the late '80s, the U.S.
government, and the rest of the international community, abandoned
Afghanistan, leaving it to the warlords, militant foreigners and the
interests of its more powerful neighbors, particularly Pakistan and Iran.
The Afghans feel deeply skeptical about the motives of the United States in
ousting the Taliban. If the U.S. concentrates its future aid on a
much-touted Unocal pipeline, they tell me, then their worst fears about the
U.S. intervention will have come true. Although the pipeline will be a
source of future jobs in the region, many will see it as the reason the
U.S. came back to Afghanistan.
The U.S. has much to prove to the people of this bomb-ravaged nation. The
U.N.'s World Food Program is currently engaged in a Herculean effort to
distribute 52,000 tons of food per month for the 6 million people rendered
dependent from the bombings, 23 years of war and three years of drought.
Aside from the mind-boggling logistical arrangements, there are two primary
obstacles to the provision of aid. One is the U.S. bombing. Aid workers
cannot distribute food under the present military campaign. The second
obstacle is the banditry and looting taking place in the void of a central
government. The solution to this is the immediate deployment of U.N.
peacekeepers. At the time of this writing, the Bush administration was
still obfuscating attempts by the U.N., France, Jordan, Turkey and
Bangladesh to send an international delegation to secure food distribution
in unruly areas. If food aid does not get through, and Afghans die by the
thousands this winter, they will know whom to blame. Traveling the six-hour
road from Jalalabad back to Peshawar, I found myself wondering about
Afghanistan's postwar economy. Afghanistan does not have significant source
of income other than its trade in opium. The country is the largest
exporter of the drug in the world. If the international community,
particularly the U.S., comes through with the billions of dollars, then,
besides rebuilding the areas destroyed by bombs, it must help create viable
economic alternatives to the opium trade and incentives for men to put down
their guns. The reconstruction also must be sustained by locally based
programs for income generation that do not put Afghanistan into
environmentally dangerous industries or exploit its labor for the benefit
of U.S. corporations. We must not put Afghanistan on a debt treadmill that
leaves the country beholden to the economic dictates of its benefactors,
nor the World Bank. In fact, reconstruction should start with the canceling
of the $50 million in debt held by the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank.
The Afghan women I met insisted I repeat as often as necessary that aid
must also focus on women and children. They told me future aid must target
education, health and job opportunities for the young. The need to focus on
children is obvious. The majority of Afghans are under 18 years old,
meaning that well over half the country has spent all of their years under
the scourge of war. Women also make up 60 percent of the country. They were
denied the right to study, work and receive medical care under the Taliban,
and were subjected to mass rape when the Northern Alliance held Kabul.
Afghan women have been delivering needed assistance during two decades of
refugee crisis, while the U.S. looked away. Now is the time for them to
take greater control.
One fine example of the success of female-run aid programs is the
Humanitarian Assistance for Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA)
organization, which was founded three years ago by 27-year-old Orzala
Ashrawf. HAWCA, based in Peshawar, serves the refugee community by
providing income-generating projects and literacy classes to women. It also
provides classes once a week to girl carpet-weavers. Visiting one Sunday
morning, I met a classroom full of girls. Every one was afflicted with a
deep phlegmy cough from the daily inhalations of thread lint. Yet each one
displayed a shining desire to learn to read and write. The youngest was 5.
I asked her if she had any time to play amidst her labors. She said no. I
then asked what time she went to work in the morning. She didn't know. She
is too young to tell time.
This girl is my muse for helping in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Her
brown-eyed gaze asks, "Will you do your part to end of the long tunnel of
war I have survived? Or will I become another Afghan orphan forced to work
before I can read?"
Deborah James is fair trade director of Global Exchange, an international
human rights organization. She also serves on the board of the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom
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Published on Sunday, December 16, 2001 in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
3. FEEDING THE HUNGRY MAY BE THE PRIME TASK OF PEACEKEEPERS
by Medea Benjamin
For 20 years, I have traveled the world, first as a U.N. relief worker and
now as a human-rights activist. I've witnessed famine in Africa and visited
burned-out villages in Central America. I have seen people dying of
starvation and people dying from the wounds of war.
But having just returned from Afghanistan, I now believe that few places
are as absolutely horrific. Twenty-three years of war, coupled with three
years of severe drought, have left a destitute and traumatized population.
The U.S. bombing campaign, while helping to defeat the oppressive Taliban
regime, has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in two ways.
First, hundreds of thousands of people, terrified by the bombs, have fled
their villages and swelled the ranks of the refugee population. Second,
before the Oct. 7 air attack, millions of Afghans were receiving
international assistance despite the difficulties of working with the
Taliban. But after the bombing began, humanitarian agencies pulled their
staff from the country and closed, or severely curtailed, their operations.
The United States has a tremendous responsibility to do everything it can
to stem the starvation facing hundreds of thousands of Afghans. The U.S.
should support an international peacekeeping force that will establish a
measure of stability and help get food to those in need.
Today, the conditions in the refugee camps in Afghanistan are shocking.
There is a widespread shortage of food, blankets and tents. Many children
have no warm clothing or even shoes and socks. And with no toilets and no
clean drinking water, hygiene is abysmal, and dysentery is spreading.
People are dying every day from cold and starvation, which will only get
worse during the bitter winter. Graveyards are springing up next to the
camps, attesting to the alarming human conditions.
In parts of the country where the fighting has stopped, humanitarian
agencies are trying to resume operations. The opening of the Friendship
Bridge on the Uzbekistan-Afghan border is welcome news, allowing thousands
of tons of food and other supplies to enter the northern part of the
country.
But provisions will not get to those who need them unless the roads are
secure. Right now, roving bands of fighters or bandits regularly commandeer
food convoys, taking the supplies to feed troops, to feed their families or
to sell on the market. With many men owning a Kalashnikov, looting and
sudden eruptions of violence are so common that truck drivers and aid
workers risk their lives to deliver assistance to those who need it most.
And while the Northern Alliance says that it can secure the roads without
outside forces, its record, to date, is not promising.
All of the aid groups I talked to in Afghanistan say that unless an
international force is sent in to secure the roads, Afghanistan will be the
scene of a humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions.
The good news is that England, France, Turkey, Jordan, Bangladesh and
Indonesia have all offered troops to carry out this mission. The bad news
is that the Pentagon and the Northern Alliance are resisting the
introduction of such a force.
Why? The Northern Alliance reportedly thinks an international force would
erode its power. It has reluctantly agreed to a small force in Kabul to
guarantee the safety of the transition government, but not a force to
secure humanitarian shipments.
The U.S. government opposes an international force because it fears that
such a force could interfere with this effort to destroy al-Qaida and Osama
bin Laden. If the international forces get in trouble, the rationale goes,
the U.S. would feel compelled to bail them out, and this could detract from
the main task.
The U.S. government's objection to a multinational force to get food to
starving people is both morally wrong and strategically shortsighted.
Staving off mass starvation is not only the right thing to do for the
Afghan people, it is also in our self interest. If the Muslim world sees
the U.S. as willing to bomb but not feed people, it will deepen the
suspicion and mistrust already felt by millions.
In the long run, ignoring the life-and-death needs of poor Afghans will set
back the larger campaign against terrorism.
Medea Benjamin is the founding director of the human-rights organization
Global Exchange, which is based in San Francisco. This article was prepared
for The Progressive Media Project in Madison.
(c) Copyright 2001, Journal Sentinel Inc.
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4. US MILITARY WANT SAS TO ATTACK BASES IN YEMEN
By Sean Rayment
Daily Telegraph (London)
(Filed: 16/12/2001)
PLANS have been drawn up for British troops to be deployed against
al-Qa'eda training camps in Yemen in the next phase of the war against
terrorism.
Allied intelligence agencies have identified a number of targets in a
lawless mountain region where sympathisers of Osama bin Laden are thought
to be based.
If the decision is taken to launch strikes outside Afghanistan, British
special forces will carry out a series of "stiletto" attacks to destroy the
camps. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen met President Bush in
Washington last month and is understood to have agreed to allow allied
troops to enter his country.
The success of combined operations by the Special Air Service and Special
Boat Service in Afghanistan has convinced United States military planners
that the British should get the job of "neutralising" al-Qa'eda in Yemen.
Gen Tommy Franks, the American commander of the Afghan campaign, and other
senior officers at US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, have been most
impressed by British commanders' ability to stage independent operations.
Any attacks are unlikely to take place until Afghanistan has been
stabilised. If agreed, they would probably take the form of "search and
destroy missions", similar to an SAS strike against a southern Afghan cave
complex last month in which four members of the regiment were wounded.
The Royal Marines or the Parachute Regiment could also be called upon to
provide troops to support special forces operations similar to the one
carried out in Sierra Leone last year when elements of the Paras supported
an SAS operation to rescue members of the British Army held hostage by
rebels.
In the 1960s the SAS carried out a series of undercover operations inside
Yemen when the state was still a British protectorate. Special SAS teams
called Keeni Meeni units were formed to counter the threat to British
politicians, soldiers and civilians from Arab death squads.
A senior British officer said: "After September 11 Yemen, Somalia, Sudan
and Iraq all faced the prospect of being attacked because of known links
with al-Qa'eda. They were the countries where our intelligence suggested
al-Qa'eda had bases.
"Yemen and Sudan denied involvement and offered help. Yemen has intimated
that it would not stand in the way of operations conducted against
terrorists on its soil. We will now have to wait and see what happens
next." Yemen is believed to be a base for hundreds of al-Qa'eda terrorists
and a training ground for many of its foreign fighters in Afghanistan. The
country has a special significance for bin Laden: his father and one of his
three wives were born there.
The CIA is said to be convinced that bin Laden was behind the attack which
killed 17 US sailors in the Yemeni port of Aden in October last year when a
boat packed with explosives crashed into the warship USS Cole.
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ANDER NIEUWS OVER DE 'NIEUWE OORLOG' - WEEKJOURNAAL
WEEK 52 - 26 DECEMBER 2001
(Engels-Nederlandse berichten - deel 2)
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5. PENTAGON DENIALS AND CIVILIAN DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN
6. VS ONTKENNEN AANVALSPLANNEN SOMALIË
7. BRACE YOURSELF FOR PART TWO OF THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION
8. NAME THE DETAINEES
9. AMERICANS 'DUPED' INTO ATTACK ON CONVOY
10. THOUSANDS OF AFGHAN REFUGEES STILL VULNERABLE TO STARVATION AND COLD
============================================
5. PENTAGON DENIALS AND CIVILIAN DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN
David Corn, AlterNet
December 7, 2001
My fantasy of the week: Donald Rumsfeld meets a young Afghan boy named Noor
Muhammad.
At the start of the daily Pentagon press briefing on December 4, the
defense secretary delivered a short lecture on the subject of civilian
casualties in Afghanistan. "One of the unpleasant aspects of war is the
reality that innocent bystanders are sometimes caught in the crossfire,"
Rumsfeld said, "and we're often asked to answer Taliban accusations about
civilian casualties. Indeed one of today's headlines is, quote 'Pentagon
Avoids Subject of Civilian Deaths.' The short answer is that that's simply
not so."
He then proceeded to prove, in a way, the offending headline's point: "With
the disorder that reigns in Afghanistan, it is next to impossible to get
factual information about civilian casualties. First, the Taliban have lied
repeatedly. They intentionally mislead the press for their own purposes.
Second, we generally do not have access to sites of alleged civilian
casualties on the ground. Third, in cases where someone does have access to
a site, it is often impossible to know how many people were killed, how
they died, and by whose hand they did die."
Look at the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld declared. The number of dead there
keeps shifting: "If we cannot know for certain how many people were killed
in Lower Manhattan, where we have full access to the site, thousands of
reporters, investigators, rescue workers combing the wreckage, and no enemy
propaganda to confuse the situation, one ought to be sensitive to how
difficult it is to know with certainty, in real time, what may have
happened in any given situation in Afghanistan ... What we at the Pentagon
try to do is to tell the press what we do know that's accurate, and we try
to say what we don't know ... We lost thousands of innocent civilians on
September 11th, and we understand what it means to lose a father, a mother,
a brother, a sister, a son or a daughter, and we mourn every civilian
death."
Rumsfeld's remarks, seemingly heartfelt, were an exercise in profound
cynicism. If we can't count the dead in New York, how can you expect us to
know anything about civilian casualties in Afghanistan? He portrayed it as
an impossible task, and he suggested that claims of civilian casualties
were only coming from Taliban scumbags. Of course, you can't believe them.
But as he was talking, Washington Post reporter Susan Glasser was filing a
piece based on a visit to Jalalabad's Public Hospital No. 1. In the
previous four days, the hospital had taken in 36 patients who said they
were victims of the U.S. bombing strikes targeting villages southwest of
Jalalabad, in an area where Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda remnants are
thought to be hiding in cave compounds. The hospital had also received 35
dead.
One of the injured was Noor Mohammed, who had lost both eyes and both arms.
Noor, who is somewhere between 10 and 12 years old, told his uncle he heard
the sound of an airplane overhead, ran from his room, and did not know what
happened next. Asked how he felt, the boy whispered, "I feel cold and I
cannot talk." Glasser found other wounded children from families who
claimed they had been struck by bombs while in their mud houses.
Two days earlier, The New York Times had run a dispatch (in a not-too
prominent spot) from Tim Weiner, reporting that, according to witnesses and
local officials, U.S. bombers flying over this area of Tora Bora had struck
three villages, killing dozens of civilians. Weiner quoted the local law
and order minister and the region's defense minister, who each maintained
such attacks had occurred. Survivors interviewed by Weiner spoke of
horrific devastation in these areas.
"The village is no more," said a man named Khalil. "All my family, 12
people, were killed. I am the only one left in this family. I have lost my
children, my wife. They are no more." Another survivor said she had lost 38
relatives; another estimated up to 200 were dead.
The Pentagon denied everything. Weiner quoted Rear Admiral Craig Quigley,
chief spokesman for the Central Command, asserting that American bombers
had hit their targets twenty miles away from these villages: "If we had hit
a village causing widespread death that was unintended, we would have said
so. We have been meticulous reporting whenever we have killed a single
person." (Interest declared: Weiner is a friend. He can be trusted to suss
out a difficult situation.)
The day after Weiner's account appeared, at the Pentagon briefing, Rear
Admiral John Stufflebeem was questioned about the reports of civilian
deaths around Tora Bora. He replied, "I have seen the press reports about
alleged civilian casualties, and I would just ask us all to remember that
this was orchestrated by the Taliban, and therefore it's not clear to us in
fact were there innocent civilians who in fact may have been injured."
(Note the double "in fact.")
The Dickensian-named admiral added, "We know for a fact that these were
legitimate military targets in that area that were struck. We know that
there was terrific traditional, consistent planning to ensure that only
these targets were struck. We know there were no off-target hits, so there
were no collateral damage worries in this series of strikes. And therefore
I can't comment on the civilian casualties because I don't know them to be
true." A few moments later, he added, "I find it a little bit suspect to
hear that villages are being flattened."
Yet Richard Lloyd Parry, a reporter for the London-based "Independent"
visited the area and found homes replaced by craters, a cemetery containing
40 freshly dug graves (some, he was told, contained only body parts), and a
fragment bearing the words "Surface Attack Guided Missile AGM 114."
Truth is often difficult to ascertain in war. But it is clear that
Stufflebeem and Rumsfeld were not speaking truthfully. The reports of these
casualties were not "orchestrated by the Taliban." In fact, as the Admiral
might say, the information was coming from officials of a government that
replaced the Taliban. What, then, to make of Noor Muhammad and his tale?
And the others who tell of hearing airplanes and being bombed in their
homes?
If Rumsfeld and Stufflebeem are to be believed, it must be that Noor and
the rest were all participating in an elaborate and sophisticated
propaganda campaign that entailed faking craters, persuading anti-Taliban
officials who are working with American forces to lie to benefit the
Taliban, enlisting dozens of persons with god-awful injuries for the con,
and encouraging children to tell false stories about how they came to be
harmed.
The reports filed by Weiner, Glasser and Parry demonstrate that Rumsfeld
was engaging in champion dissembling when he maintained the Pentagon cannot
possibly keep track of civilian casualties in wild and wooly Afghanistan.
The U.S. military may not be able to discern figures with the same
precision it claims for its bombing. Yet in many instances it can determine
if civilian casualties have happened by doing what Weiner and the other
reporters did: asking people on the ground.
Instead, in this latest episode, the Pentagon rushed out a denial that does
not hold and then further insulted local Afghan officials and survivors by
dismissing their reports as Taliban disinformation -- and waited for that
news cycle to whiz by. I would like to watch Rumsfeld and Stufflebeem tell
the eyeless and armless Noor Muhammad he's lying. It is not, as Rumsfeld
asserted, "impossible to get factual information about civilian
casualties." His military just hasn't bothered. It could start by sending
someone to interview Noor and his fellow survivors.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation.
============================================
6. VS ONTKENNEN AANVALSPLANNEN SOMALIË
ANP, 20 december
WASHINGTON (ANP) - De Amerikaanse minister van Defensie Donald Rumsfeld
heeft woensdag tegengesproken dat de Amerikanen binnenkort aanvallen gaan
uitvoeren op Somalië. Uitspraken van een Duitse functionaris alsof er
acties komen zijn "onzin", aldus de bewindsman.
"De Duitser had het fout, weliswaar niet met opzet maar hij zal er wel
spijt van hebben", zei Rumsfeld tijdens een persconferentie. "De
uitlatingen door een niet met naam genoemde Duitse ambtenaar wat wij gaan
doen, zijn zeer interessant. Het is voor ons allemaal nieuw want de
situatie is de afgelopen dagen niet veranderd", zo voegde een woordvoerder
van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken daar aan toe.
Goed ingelichte bronnen meldden dinsdagavond vanuit Brussel dat de door de
Verenigde Staten aangevoerde strijd tegen het terrorisme en het netwerk van
al-Qaeda naar Somalië zou worden uitgebreid.
De vraag is niet langer of er in Somalië actie wordt ondernomen, maar
wanneer en met welke middelen, zo werd duidelijk na een bijeenkomst van de
ministers van Defensie van de NAVO. Duitsland heeft in het kader van de
samenwerking met de Verenigde Staten schepen naar de Somalische wateren
gestuurd.
Berlijn verklaarde al "geen enkele aanwijzing" te hebben voor een
uitbreiding van de militaire campagne tegen het terrorisme naar Somalië.
Een Duitse regeringswoordvoerder noemde het nieuws "eigenaardig".
De Amerikaanse stafchef Myers bevestigde woensdag dat Somalië "een
potentieel doelwit" is in de Amerikaanse strijd tegen het terrorisme, "net
als andere landen". Maar hij benadrukte dat eventuele actie niet per se
militair zal zijn.
============================================
7. BRACE YOURSELF FOR PART TWO OF THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION
'The US air strikes have now killed more Afghans than the hijackers killed
westerners and others'
Robert Fisk (The Independent, UK)
22 December 2001
It needed my old Irish journalist colleague, Vincent Browne, to point out
the obvious to me. With a headache as big as Afghanistan, reading through a
thousand newspaper reports on the supposed "aftermath" of the Afghan war,
I'd become drugged by the lies. Afghan women were free at last, "our"
peacekeeping force was on its way, the Taliban were crushed. Anti- American
demonstrations in Pakistan had collapsed - we'll forget my little brush
with some real Afghans there a couple of weeks ago. Al-Qa'ida was being
"smoked out" of its cave. Osama bin Laden was - well, not captured or even
dead; but - well, the Americans had a videotape, incomprehensible to every
Arab I've met, which "proves" that our latest monster planned the crimes
against humanity on New York and Washington.
So it needed Vincent, breathing like a steam engine as he always does when
he's angry, to point to the papers in Gemma's, my favourite Dublin
newsagents. "What in Christ's sake is going on, Bob?'' he asked. "Have you
seen the headlines of all this shite?'' and he pulled Newsweek from the
shelf. The headline: After The Evil.
"What is this biblical bollocks?'' Vincent asked me. Osama bin Laden's
overgrained, videotaped face stared from the cover of the magazine, a dark,
devilish image from Dante's circles of hell. When he captured Berlin,
Stalin announced that his troops had entered "the lair of the fascist
beast''. But the Second World War has nothing on this.
So let's do a "story-so-far". After Arab mass-murderers crashed four
hijacked aircraft into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and
Pennsylvania, a crime against humanity which cost more than 4,000 innocent
lives, President Bush announced a crusade for infinite "justice" - later
downgraded to infinite freedom - and bombed Afghanistan. Using the gunmen
and murderers of the discredited Northern Alliance to destroy the gunmen
and murderers of the discredited Taliban, the Americans bombed bin Laden's
cave fortresses and killed hundreds of Afghan and Arab fighters, not
including the prisoners executed after the Anglo- US-Northern Alliance
suppression of the Mazar prison revolt.
The production of the bin Laden videotape - utterly convincing evidence of
his guilt to the world's press, largely, if wilfully, ignored by the Muslim
world - helped to obscure the fact that Mr Evil, seemed to have
disappeared. It also helped to airbrush a few other facts away. We could
forget that US air strikes, according to statistics compiled by a Chicago
University professor, have now killed more innocent Afghans than the
hijackers killed westerners and others in the World Trade Centre. We could
forget that Mullah Omar, the mysterious leader of the Taliban, has also got
away.
We could ignore the fact that, save for a few brave female souls, almost
all Afghan women in Kabul continued to wear the burqa. We could certainly
close our eyes to the massive preponderance of Northern Alliance killers
represented in the new UN- supported, pro-western Government in Kabul. We
could clap our hands when a mere 50 Royal Marines arrived in Afghanistan
this weekend to support a UN-mandated British-led "peace" force of only a
few thousand men who will need the Kabul government's permission to operate
in the city and which, in numbers, will come to about one-third of the
complement of the British Army destroyed in the Kabul Gorge in 1842.
The "peace" force thinks it will have to defend humanitarian aid convoys
from robbers and dissident Taliban. In fact, it will have to fight off the
Northern Alliance mafia and drug-growers and warlords, as well as the
vicious guerrillas sent out to strike them by bin Laden's survivors. If
nothing else, the Taliban made the roads and villages of Afghanistan safe
for Afghans and foreigners alike. Now, you can scarcely drive from Kabul to
Jalalabad.
Presumably, the CIA will let us pay the Alliance mobsters for their war in
Afghanistan. One of the untold stories of this conflict is the huge amount
of money handed out to militia leaders to persuade them to fight for the
US. When Taliban members changed sides for an Alliance payment of $250,000
and then attacked their benefactors, we all dwelt on their treachery. None
of us asked how the Alliance - which didn't have enough money to pay for
bullets a few weeks earlier - could throw a quarter of a million bucks at
the Taliban in the middle of a fire site. Nor how the Pashtun tribal
leaders of Kandahar province are now riding around in brand-new four-wheel
drives with thousands of dollars to hand out to their gunmen. I wasn't
surprised to read that a Somali warlord is now offering his cash-for-hire
services to the US for the next round of the War on Civilisation.
Fortunately for us, the civilian victims of America's B52s will remain
unknown in their newly dug graves. Even before the war ended, around 3,700
of them - not counting Mullah Omar's and bin Laden's gunmen - had been
ripped to pieces in our War for Civilisation. A few scattered signs of
discontent - the crowd that assaulted me two weeks ago, for example,
outraged at the killing of their families - can be quickly erased from the
record.
It is obviously perverse to note that I haven't met a single ordinary
Muslim or, indeed many westerners - Pakistani, Afghan, Arab, British,
French, American - who actually believe all this guff. Let's just remember
that the new Kabul government is as committed to support "Islam, democracy,
pluralism (sic) and social justice'' as Mr Bush is to Good (sic) and the
Destruction of Evil. Roll on next year, and don't worry about bin Laden -
he may be back just in time to participate in Part Two of the War for
Civilisation
============================================
8. NAME THE DETAINEES
by Russ Feingold
Published on Sunday, December 23, 2001 in the Washington Post
Who are the people the Justice Department has detained in its investigation
into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and why are they being held? I have
asked the Bush administration this question repeatedly, but to little
avail. The Justice Department has provided scant information about the
identities and basis for detention of more than 1,100 people who have been
or are currently being detained, the vast majority of whom, Justice
Department officials admit, have no link to Sept. 11 or the al Qaeda
terrorist network.
The government has detained hundreds of men, most of them Arab and Muslim,
for weeks or months, and we now know that at least some of these
individuals have been denied their constitutional rights.
On Oct. 31, along with six other members of Congress, I sent a letter to
Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting basic information about the
detention of individuals in connection with the investigation of the Sept.
11 attacks. More than seven weeks later, the Justice Department has
provided the identities of fewer than 100 people held on federal criminal
charges. To date the department has offered no convincing legal
justification for keeping secret the identities of more than 550 people
held on immigration violations, nor has it identified hundreds of
additional people who are being held on state charges or have been
released.
There is no question that the United States must work to destroy the al
Qaeda network and severely punish all those involved in the horrific
attacks of Sept. 11. But by apparently denying some of the detainees their
right to due process of law, the Justice Department, in its effort to
protect the American people, is eroding our constitutional freedoms.
According to news reports and testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, some detainees have been held for days or weeks without access
to counsel, and in certain cases have suffered death or serious injury.
Muhammed Butt, a Pakistani national whom the FBI did not even suspect of
involvement with terrorism, died Oct. 23 after being held for 33 days.
Osama Awadallah, a Jordanian-born permanent resident of the United States,
was held in detention for three months until his release on bond. He was
kicked and beaten while in detention, according to his lawyer.
At one of the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, we heard
testimony from Gerald Goldstein, an attorney for Dr. Al- Badr Al-Hazmi, a
Saudi national detained for nearly two weeks. Goldstein told the committee
that the department denied Dr. Al- Hazmi access to counsel for seven days.
Another witness at our hearing, Ali Maqtari, a Yemeni national, was
detained for nearly two months on a technical immigration violation that
would normally be resolved with some additional paperwork. He testified
that he was allowed only one phone call per week of no more than 15
minutes.
Our hearings showed that this is more than a theoretical debate about
security vs. liberty in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. There is
reason for real concern about the tragic impact on innocent lives of the
indiscriminate and unchecked use of government power in this investigation.
The Justice Department has given only flimsy and contradictory excuses for
withholding information about the detainees. For example, department
officials have argued that disclosing information about detainees will aid
Osama bin Laden. But if that were true, the department would never have
permitted the release of the names of the individuals charged with federal
crimes, including Zacarias Moussaoui. Surely this justification does not
apply to those who have been cleared of any connection to terrorism and are
simply being held for visa violations.
Members of Congress and public interest organizations have been told that
our effort to oversee the Justice Department's investigation is tantamount
to aiding the terrorists. That accusation is not only untrue, it is
offensive in a democracy, and a stunning example of the lengths to which
some will go to deflect criticism about the way the Justice Department is
conducting its investigation.
Instead of expending resources to prevent the release of information about
the detainees, the administration should show that it has confidence in the
Justice Department's investigation by opening the department's actions to
public scrutiny. The administration can begin by identifying all those who
have been or are still in custody and the basis for their detention. By
insisting on keeping this information secret, the department only furthers
suspicions that it is doing so to conceal abuses of innocent people.
The writer is a Democratic senator from Wisconsin.
(c) 2001 The Washington Post Company
============================================
9. AMERICANS 'DUPED' INTO ATTACK ON CONVOY
By Kim Sengupta in Kabul
24 December 2001
A tale of tribal treachery, Arab mercenaries and how the Americans may have
been used to settle an Afghan blood feud emerged yesterday behind the
bombing of a convoy that left up to 60 people dead and 40 injured.
The killings threatened to cast a shadow over the new interim government of
Hamid Karzai, who took office on Saturday. The casualties were said to be
on their way to Kabul from the eastern province of Paktia for the
inauguration when they were attacked by US Air Force AC-130 gunships and
Navy jets.
The news of the strikes had a major impact on delegates gathered in the
capital. The Pentagon, however, insisted that the vehicles the warplanes
had raided were al-Qa'ida ones. The commander of the Afghan War, General
Tommy Franks, said that his forces were acting on intelligence and had
retaliated after coming under fire from two surface-to-air missiles.
But it has now been claimed that "intelligence" had been supplied to the
Americans by a Paktia warlord, Pacha Khan, who had a score to settle with
members of the nomadic Kochi clan - who have a reputation for lawlessness -
travelling in the convoy. Local villagers said he had deliberately
misinformed the Americans that the vehicles contained al-Qa'ida fighters
and engineered the air attack.
Mr Khan is a powerful man whose brother is a minister in Mr Karzai's new
cabinet. He is also said to be close to the American commanders.
According to the locals, his men blocked the convoy from the main road
between the towns of Khost and Gardez, forcing it to get on to a remote
mountain pass, thus making it appear it was attempting to avoid detection.
All 24 vehicles were hit and most of them destroyed as the warplanes struck
just after 6pm on Thursday and carried out repeated sorties. Among the
killed and injured, it was reported, were two mujahedin commanders,
Mohammed Ibrahim, whose brother Jalaluddin Haqqani was a minister in the
Taliban government, and Haji Nayim Kochi, a clan elder.
The twisted and burnt wreckage of the cars and buses lay mangled near the
town of Soto Kondou, 50 miles east of Khost, yesterday. The villagers of
Asmani Kilai, where most of the people in the convoy came from, spoke of
how Pacha Khan had allegedly got the Americans to do their dirty work,
naming him as the malicious informer.
One villager, Agha Mohammed, said: "There were no terrorists here. They
have destroyed an entire village, we have nothing left.''
Another, Khodai Noor, said: "The people who got hit were going to
congratulate Karzai on the transfer of power. There are no members of
al-Qa'ida or supporters of Osama bin Laden here."
One of those hit was Haji Yaqub Khan Tanaiwal, 65, who suffered multiple
fractures to his right leg and injuries to his arms. Speaking at a hospital
near Peshawar, across the Pakistani border, he said: "Those who reported on
the convoy must have a grudge against some people in it. The Americans know
who gave them the report. They should not rely on people like that.
"We were first told that the road was closed and then armed men made us get
off the road. There was not a single shot fired from the convoys. But the
planes attacked. There were about six people in each car, and every car was
hit. Those who survived the first attack ran for cover, under trees. Others
were trapped inside their cars. There were no Talibans in the convoy. We
all support the new government and the US because they supported us in the
jihad against the Russians. I fought in that war.''
General Shahnawaz Tanai, from the same area, fought against Mr Tanaiwal in
that war. The general, who was chief-of-staff to President Najibullah, who
was later murdered by the Taliban, said: "I know Haji Yaqub. He is no
Taliban."
But Pacha Khan's brother denied that anyone from his family had informed on
the convoy and said the dead were all Osama bin Laden's Arab fighters, who
had set up base in Paktia and the provinces of Paktia, Helmand and Khost.
Amanullah Zadran, the new minister for borders, who had just attended his
first cabinet meeting, said in Kabul: "We do have contacts with Americans
and we have told them about al-Qa'ida. I do know the Americans have a photo
of a Stinger missile being fired at them. There are around 350 Arabs who
are in this area: they are mercenaries who are paid by the UAE [United Arab
Emirates]. They were trying to escape to Pakistan when they were attacked.
I have seen pictures of four of the dead, they are Arabs.
"We did not tell the Americans about the convoy. Their planes found it," he
said.
* The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who
became one of the best-known faces of the war in Afghanistan, said
yesterday he had applied for political asylum in Pakistan.
============================================
10. THOUSANDS OF AFGHAN REFUGEES STILL VULNERABLE TO STARVATION AND COLD
http://www.wpkn.org/wpkn/news/benjamin122801.ram
Scott Harris is the executive producer of Between The Lines
Weekly radio newsmagazine, Between The Lines, for the week ending Dec. 28,
2001.
Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange warns about the potential humanitarian
disaster inside Afghanistan.
In little more than two months, the U.S.-led campaign to topple the
repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan has for the most part succeeded.
Intense fighting in the Tora Bora region stopped as al Qaeda fighters were
driven from caves and shelters in the mountainous region. But, both the
U.S. military and their anti-Taliban Afghan allies -- who laid siege to the
area from the air and on the ground -- admitted they did not know the
whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or other high-level al Qaeda leaders.
According to a report compiled by professor Marc Herold of the University
of New Hampshire, an estimated 3,500 Afghan civilians have thus far been
killed in the U.S. bombing campaign. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of
Afghan refugees are without food, shelter and medical care as harsh winter
weather creates ever more dangerous conditions. Shipments of desperately
needed food and clothing have been slow in reaching refugees in camps
inside Afghanistan. One reason for the delay cited by humanitarian aid
groups is the lawless condition around the country, including bands of
looters who attack food convoys, permitted by the lack of any U.N.
peacekeeping force to maintain order.
Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Medea Benjamin, founding
director of the social justice group Global Exchange, who describes the
conditions she witnessed among Afghan refugees while on a recent
fact-finding mission to the region.
Medea Benjamin: We just came back, having visited seven different refugee
camps and seen lots of people who were anxious to get aid from U.N.
organizations. But because of problems with the roads, particularly those
who were in camps within Afghanistan, the food is not getting to the people
that need it.
Between The Lines: And what are some of the conditions that you saw among
the refugees themselves?
Medea Benjamin: Well, we saw a lot of dysentery, a lot of children who are
malnourished, a lot of children who had no shoes or socks, no change of
clothing, no warm blankets. Families that had no decent tents to keep them
out of the cold and it can get very cold in certain parts of Afghanistan
where it's already snowing. So I would say the combination of not enough
food, decent shelter or clothing puts many hundreds of thousands of people
in a very precarious situation.
Between the Lines: Because the U.S. and their Afghan allies have now
virtually defeated the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the thought is that the aid
will soon start flowing to those that need it the most. Is that something
that you think is safe to assume at this point or not?
Medea Benjamin: Well, I think that it will be better than it was, but given
that the roads are still unsafe, drivers are putting their lives at risk by
taking in humanitarian aid and aid workers are putting their lives at risk
at distribution centers. So, what is still needed is an international force
to guarantee that the food gets to who needs it. Now, with the new Afghan
government getting situated on Dec. 22nd and an international force going
to Kabul to protect that government, there's the beginning of an
international force in Afghanistan, but so far no provisions have been made
for that same force to be protecting the different roads. So while the
situation should improve with an end to the fighting, there's no guarantee.
Between The Lines: What are the obstacles standing in the way of getting
those peacekeepers from various nations? What's the problem in getting them
there quickly so that the aid can start flowing?
Medea Benjamin: The problem in the past month has been the United States.
The U.S. has said they didn't want any other nation to send in a force, and
there were about five or six nations that were ready to do so that included
France, Britain, Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Jordan. But the U.S.
said that having another international force inside the country would
divert the United States from its focus on defeating Al Qaeda, so the U.S.
blocked that force. Now the Northern Alliance which is the majority force
in the new government is also reluctant to have an international
peace-keeping force securing the roads because the Northern Alliance and
their defense minister, would like to be the ones in control themselves.
Now, obviously if they had the ability to control the situation there
wouldn't be a problem today and there is a problem so they can't control
it. And everyone we talked to while we were there said they wanted an
international force, that they didn't really care which country was sending
the troops, but they wanted someone to guarantee that there would not be
this constant looting and banditry on the roads.
Between The Lines: During your trip, did you learn anything more about the
number of casualties -- civilian, military -- that have been claimed by the
U.S. war on Afghanistan thus far? It seems that the U.S. media, the White
House and military really have said very little in the way of, how they
would phrase it, "collateral damage." But we're talking about civilians and
others who have been killed by the massive bombing in certain parts of the
country.
Medea Benjamin: We were very surprised from the day we got (inside
Afghanistan) and the day we got to Pakistan at the encounters that we had
with people who had either lost a loved one, a member of their family, a
neighbor, or they themselves had been physically hurt by the bombing. As we
encountered family after family, we realized that we were not talking about
dozens of people, we're not talking about hundreds of people, but that this
must be in the thousands. Now, people in the region were talking in the
level of 2,000 to 3,000, some of them said as high as 5,000. But nobody had
an accurate picture. There is a U.S. professor who recently came out with a
report saying about 3,700 dead -- and this (was calculated) from a
compilation of press reports that have come out in different countries
around the world. So the numbers are probably over 3,000. We're talking
about innocent victims here; we're not talking about soldiers who died in
the fighting. But (the numbers are) probably larger than the number who
died at the World Trade Center and let's remember that these people were
every bit as innocent as those who died in the trade center towers.
Contact Global Exchange by calling 1 (800) 497-1994 or visit their Web site
at http://www.globalexchange.org